Cross-border E-commerce and China's Exports during the COVID-19 Pandemic

China's exports experienced a rapid recovery after the outbreak of the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic.A primary engine was cross-border e-commerce(CBEC)trade,which bucked the downward export trend during the pandemic.By exploring the variation in the number of CBEC comprehensive pilot zones across provinces,we identified the causal impact of CBEC on exports using monthly province-product-destination data for 2019 and 2020.We found strong and robust evidence that CBEC contributed to exports during the pandemic by promoting the expansion of incumbent exports(intensive margin)rather than through the expansion of product categories and exporting partners(extensive margin).Specifically,higher pandemic risk suppressed the role of CBEC at the intensive margin while enhancing it at the extensive margin.Exports to developed countries benefited more from CBEC,both intensively and extensively.Compared with final products,a larger number of intermediate products were exported through CBEC after the outbreak of the pandemic.

The Stagnant Export Upgrading in Northeast China:Evidence from Value-added Tax Reform

China's 2004 value-added tax(VAT)pilot reform in the Northeast region,which changed the VAT from production type to consumption type,introduced a sizable tax credit for fixed investment in manufacturing industries,leading to more investment and higher productivity at firm level.This paper,however,uses difference-in-difference estimation and finds a negative structural effect;that is,the VAT pilot reform leads to a reduction in the export sophistication of Northeast cities relative to other cities in China,and the results hold for a battery of robustness checks.It is found that resources are reallocated towards less-sophisticated industries.As the products with higher export sophistication are more skill and research and development(R&D)intensive,the shortfalls of skilled labor and R&D spending hinder the upgrading process.With a new round of revitalization plans in the Northeast,policymakers should be cautious with similar structural effects and focus on increasing skilled labor supply and R&D investment.

Brief news

China's exports of rare earth minerals were 5,068 tons in April 2017, up 37.1% than the same period a year earlier and 8.0% than the previous month. The average export price was $8.1 per kilogram, up 34.5% than the same period a year earlier but down 6.4% than the previous month. China's rare earth exports totaled 17,626 tons during the first four months of 2017, up 15.3% year-on-year. The average export price was $7.6 per kilogram, up 5.9% year-on-year.

An Inquiry into the Determinants of the Exports of China and India

Regression analysis is used to tease out the relative significance of influences on the supply and demand for the exports of China and India. On the supply side, the value-added tax in China has discouraged export supply. The elimination of the rebate on those taxes will discourage exports. Higher wages discourage exports, but the share of exports by foreign invested enterprise is a positive influence, as is a higher share of value added in output and greater experience in exporting. On the demand side, exports depend in part on aggregate income levels in importing countries. Relative wages have been more important than exchange rates in determining the demands for Chinese and Indian exports. This evidence does not support the pressures for a devaluation of the RMB. There is also evidence of the positive significance of the accustomization of purchasers to buying Chinese exports.

Export Performance of China: A Constant Market Share Analysis

In the light of the fact that there has been substantial growth in China's exports in last three decades, particularly after China joined the WTO in 2001, this article investigates the major sources of China's export performance during 2002-2014 by using the constant market share (CMS) model. In this study, exports are further decomposed in three categories based on their technological intensity using Lail (2000) classification on 3 digit SITC Revision-3 data provided by UN Comtrade via WITS database. The categories are high technology, medium technology and low technology. It is found that growth of China's exports has, moreover, remained above world exports growth in all three categories during the period of study. The analysis reveals that export performance is mainly attributed to 让s competitive strength in the global market, though decreasing trend has been observed in the competitiveness of all three categories. Increasing cost of labor and appreciating RMB could be the causes behind decreasing competitiveness of Chinese exports. Product structure effect, on an average, has turned out to be negative in all the categories which is the most disturbing aspect of China's export performance. On the other hand, geographical structure effect has positive impact on export performance of high-technology based exports whereas it has negative impact on export performance of low-technology and medium-technology based exports. China being the world's largest exporter, decreasing competitiveness and wrong product structure effect could adversely influence its export performance in particular and its growth in general.